trade for English ships. The previous comparative insignificance of the
colonies and the trouble in England had served to protect them, but their
trade had now assumed a proportion that made the mother country realize
what a valuable commercial asset she would have if she regulated the
colonies in her own interest.


SUMMARY

In this chapter we have traced the history of American colonial literature
from the foundation of the Jamestown Colony until 1754. Before 1607
Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare had written, and before 1620 the King
James version of the _Bible_ had been produced. England had, therefore, a
wonderful literature before her colonies came to America. They were the
heirs of all that the English race had previously accomplished; and they
brought to these shores an Elizabethan initiative, ingenuity, and
democratic spirit.

The Virginia colony was founded, as colonies usually are, for a commercial
reason. The Virginians and the other southern colonists lived more by
agriculture, were more widely scattered, had fewer schools, more slaves,
and less town life than the New Englanders. Under the influence of a
commanding clergy, common schools, and the stimulus of town life, the New
England colony produced more literature.

The chief early writers of Virginia are: (1) Captain John Smith, who
described the country and the Indians, and gave to literature the story of
Pocahontas, thereby disclosing a new world to the imagination of writers;
(2) William Strachey, who outranks contemporary colonial writers in
describing the wrath of the sea, and who may even have furnished a